


Before It Has Begun, We're Already Won

by wellthatlookslikefun



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, POV Outsider, This is my first work, so be nice please?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-17
Updated: 2014-09-17
Packaged: 2018-02-17 17:32:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2317646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wellthatlookslikefun/pseuds/wellthatlookslikefun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“How did you know?”<br/>“That I was bi?”<br/>Harry nods.<br/>“I fell in love with my best mate.”</p><p>or: the one where Harry has a lot of questions and Niall’s best friend knows all the answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before It Has Begun, We're Already Won

**Author's Note:**

> credit for the title goes to Fall Out Boy, from their song Young Volcanoes
> 
> (you may have seen this a few months ago, when I accidentally posted the draft. and then forgot to take it down to edit it until now. so this is the actual finished version.)

The first time he asked her about it, the question was quiet and vague and they were hanging out backstage before one of his shows.

“What’s it like, Sophie?”

Confused, Sophie looked up from the TV where she was watching the epic One Direction versus 5 Seconds of Summer FIFA tournament and at Harry, whose face was scrunched up partially from embarrassment and partially from curiosity. They were on a separate couch from the guys currently fighting over the video game; Sophie was lying with her head propped up on one end and her feet tucked under Harry’s leg.

“What’s what like?” She belatedly asked Harry in reply. He ducked his head, obviously avoiding her questioning look, in favor of pulling at a loose thread from his sweatpants. Sophie watched him very carefully, though, and saw his eyes flick over to the other guys before he replied quietly.

“What’s it like being public?” Sophie quirked an eyebrow at Harry, still confused, and he hastily added “Being public about being bi, I mean.”

Oh. _OH_. She had known that these questions would be coming eventually. Ever since Niall had introduced her to the 1D lads as “the best female friend a guy could ask for” (and then explained in very explicit detail about how Sophie was bisexual and how it made their friendship stronger than anything else because they could talk about pulling girls and how hot Mila Kunis was) Sophie could tell that Harry would be the one most interested in her sexuality. Not because he was uncomfortable with it; Harry was the kind of person who was interested in the way that sexuality worked and how people worked with it.

Still, this was not the exact first question that she had been expecting.

Harry was looking at her expectantly, so Sophie decided against teasing him and just answering honestly.

“Well, I wouldn’t call it being public because I’m not a celebrity who has to make a massive announcement about if they like girls or not.” Harry chuckled a bit as she stuck her tongue out at him. “But I am out of the closest, if that’s what you mean. All my family and friends know.” She paused, then added, “And most of your fans now that I think about some of the things that Niall’s tweeted and I’ve tweeted. But I don’t really care about being out or not to your fans.”

Harry, who had been listening intently while still playing with that stupid thread, looked up when Sophie added the last bit. “Have our fans been bothering you? Because I could say something-“

She cut him off by shaking my head. “It’s nothing that I haven’t heard already. It’s normal things that people would say to my face about my sexuality, nothing too harsh.”

Harry opened his mouth to protest some more, but she cut him off again.

“Harry, I’m going to tell you what’s been said to my face about my sexuality and then you’ll see that your fans are fine, so just be quiet for a second, yeah?” Sophie glared at him until he nodded before continuing.

“A lot of people, both straight and gay, don’t understand how people can be bi. They’ll tell me that I need to pick a side, that I’m just trying to cheat out of being gay or grab more attention that I’d get for being straight-”

“But that’s shit!” Harry interrupted her, eyes blazing and voice raised. “You have no control over who you like! You like people, not their bits!”

Sophie laughed when he realized that everyone in the room was staring at them after his outburst. Blushing, Harry motioned for her to continue.

“I know that, Harry, and you know that, but a lot of people don’t. Usually I explain it to them and they understand, or at least tolerate it, but some people don’t and I’m used to that- don’t interrupt me, I’m not done!”

Harry raised his hand before saying “Can I at least cuddle with you while you tell me this so you’re not upset?”

“Sure,” Sophie rolled her eyes, “but I think you’re more upset about this stuff than I am.” They shifted around so that Harry ended up lying with his head on her stomach, Sophie playing with his hair as she kept talking.

“The worst, honestly, is the fact that I don’t belong to either group.” Sophie was talking more quietly and more seriously; she didn’t like talking about that bad parts of her sexuality very much. “The gay community isn’t comfortable with me because they don’t feel that I’ve had the same social struggles that they have had and the straight community isn’t okay around me because they’re afraid that I’m secretly checking them all out and having gay sexual fantasies behind their backs. You learn to let it roll off of you, but it is annoying having such a lack of community. However, that’s honestly the only actual real shitty part about being bi.”

Harry was quiet after she finished talking. Sophie was still petting his hair, but she could practically hear him thinking. After a few minutes (in which the 5sos team won the FIFA match and the 1D team demanded a rematch), she poked Harry in the side.

“Why do you ask?” Sophie wondered out loud, not really expecting a serious answer.

Harry hummed thoughtfully before answering.

“I just wanted to know, I guess,” he murmured. But she caught another worried glance at the other boys. Before Sophie could say anything, though, Harry sat up and shouted to the room about how it was his turn to play FIFA and that Sophie was demanding cuddles from anyone whose name started with the letter L.

Two seconds later, she glared up at him under a pile of Liam, Louis, and Luke.

 

*

 

The second time Harry asked her about it, he was on a tour break and they were grabbing lunch together. Sophie had run into him at the major farmers’ market in London (and by running into him she means that he jumped out at her from behind a giant stack of potatoes and Sophie had screamed and threw one at his head) and he had insisted on buying her lunch to make up for giving her a heart attack. He asked after they had passed through all the small talk and while she was instagramming the cute front of the café they were at.

“What’s the best part?” Harry murmured, as if they were continuing a conversation that hadn’t even been started.

“Of being bi?” Sophie clarified. He nodded. “The best part is probably the fact that I have really meaningful relationships.” In response to his unasked follow up question, she continued. “Because I don’t worry about gender, I can be attracted to so many different kinds of people and personalities. I don’t have a type, I have the ability to have that special emotional connection with a huge variety of people, and that’s amazing.”

Harry stared at her with his mouth hanging open for a second. She looked over my shoulder to make sure there wasn’t anything crazy behind me, before turning back to look at him and raising a teasing eyebrow.

“Sorry,” He stuttered. “It’s just… that was really deep, Sophie.”

She shrugged, smiling slightly. “I do what I can.”

Harry grinned back at her, before holding up his phone and pulling Sophie in for a picture. “Let’s take a picture and post it on twitter to rub it in Niall’s face that we’re hanging out without him.” She laughed in agreement as the flash went off.

 

*

 

The third time Harry asked her about it, they were both a bit tipsy and at a party that Niall had thrown in celebration of passing his driver’s test. Sophie had left the giant craziness of the party to get some fresh air on Niall’s balcony. She shot a smile at Zayn, who was smoking over in one corner, but past that they both stayed quiet and on separate ends of the balcony until Harry came stumbling out and hugged Sophie tightly, nestling his head in her neck.

“Doesn’t it bother you?”

By this point, she was catching on.

“Being bi? No, I thought that was pretty obvious,” she answered, patting him on the back for being so overprotective, but he shook his head.

“No, Sophie, I meant the whole thing at parties. Like, how girls know that you’re bi and so when they’re drunk at parties they’ll make out with you but it doesn’t mean anything.”

This was a new angle for this conversation. Sighing, Sophie pulled Harry a bit tighter, cuddling him in.

“It doesn’t bother me as much as you think,” She answered slowly. “Mainly we’re both drunk and a bit looser and it doesn’t matter to me or the girl whatsoever. I look at it as helping girls figure out if they really only like guys or not. Plus,” She added, poking Harry in the side as she grinned, “I get to make out with a lot of hot women. What’s better than that?”

Sophie could feel Harry laughing and she shifted a bit, turning to see that Zayn was still on the balcony and listening very closely to their conversation. He raised his eyebrows at her, silently asking what was up with Harry. Sophie just shrugged in response because she didn’t actually know the answer.

“Hey, Harry?” she asked quietly, looking back down at him. He hummed to show he was listening. “Any particular reason you’re asking me all of these questions?”

Harry shook his head and mumbled “not really,” but Zayn mouthed “bullshit” so Sophie kept pressing, knowing that something was bugging Harry.

“You know, Harry, if you’re a bit confused, one of the best ways to figure this shit out is to go make out with someone of the same gender.”

Okay, so Sophie wasn’t very subtle. Sue her, she was drunk.

Harry just laughed and pulled away, grabbing her arm to drag her back to the party. “Come on, I want to make Niall jealous of how I’m your new best friend.” Sophie followed obediently, waving goodbye to Zayn.

 

*

 

The fourth time, Harry didn’t ask her about it. Nick Grimshaw did.

Sophie was sitting in her flat one random weeknight, doing coursework for her university classes and fighting a hangover (Sophie always told herself that she wouldn’t get extremely drunk with Niall and their Irish friends and she always did anyway) when she got a text message from an unknown number.

 _Unknown Number_ **: Hey is this the girl that told Harold that making out with a guy would be a good idea for him to discover himself?**

Sophie nearly choked on the tea that she had just taken a sip from. It took her a good ten minutes to build up the courage to reply.

 _Sophie_ **: yeah that’d be me, Sophie btw, why, what did he do. also who is this?**

 _Unknown Number:_ **It’s Nick Grimshaw and do you know how much of a headache you caused me?!**

Giving up, Sophie called him up instead of texting back. Nick answered with a simple “You better have a good reason for all of this.”

She groaned in response before saying “Look, I have no idea why me telling Harry to make out with a guy has anything to do with you but can you please be quieter, I have a massive hangover” all in one breath.

Nick laughed sarcastically. “You telling Harry to make out with a guy has everything to do with me!” Sophie groaned, he was shouting again, but Nick plowed on. “Harry decided that because we’re such good mates that making out with me wouldn’t be weird at all!”

She just sighed. Of course Harry would kiss the loudest person possible to test out his sexuality (did she mention how hung over she was?). “Well?” Sophie asked. “Was it a shitty kiss then, or something?”

“No, miss I don’t give a damn about how big of a deal this is, it was not a shitty kiss!” Nick’s voice had dropped to a quiet whisper. “That’s not the point here!”

“I don’t see what the issue is then! What is the point?!” She answered, falling back onto her bed to better handle this phone conversation.

“The issue is that we were caught by my producer and now I have to convince him we are not, in fact, actually together!” Nick sounded practically hysterical.

“Look, Grimshaw, I don’t understand how this is my problem? Just tell him you rejected Harry afterwards or something?”

Nick sighed over the phone. “You think I haven’t tried that? But of course he didn’t believe me. I’m going to get harassed by Showbot on Monday, you know. And I don’t even know why Harry wanted to kiss me anyway. I don’t like having kissed my popstar best friend, it’s like seeing your parent naked.”

Sophie laughed a bit. “Grimmy, stop freaking out. Look at it this way: Harry kissed you to make sure that he wasn’t wrong about what he’s been thinking about his sexuality. Consider making out with him as just helping a mate out.” She laughed again before adding, “Really, you gay people don’t seem to understand this concept.”

Nick chuckled at that. “It’s just because you bi people seem to think kissing everyone is the answer to everything!”

She laughed at this too. “Not all bi people, just me!” He laughed in response before hanging up on me.

 _Well_ , Sophie thought, _at least I got Nick Grimshaw’s number out of that conversation._

 

*

 

The last time Harry asked her about it, she was visiting their tour again. They were in Australia now, where Sophie had never been before, and she was lounging by the hotel pool to tan while Niall, Liam, Calum, and Ashton fucked around in the shallow end. She felt Harry’s shadow creep up on her but Sophie didn’t bother turning around.

“How did you know?” She cracked an eye open to see Harry towering above her.

“That I was bi?” Harry nodded.

Sophie smiled. She had been waiting for this question. Closing her eyes again, she answered him.

“I fell in love with one of my best mates.”

Sophie felt Harry sit down on the end of her lounge chair. “And that was it? Did you ever act on those feelings?” She nodded yes to both questions, her eyes still closed. “How did you tell her?”

The memory still could make her grin. “I pulled her aside one night when a group of us were hanging out and said that I couldn’t stop thinking about how much I wanted to kiss her. She just smiled at me before leaning in and giving me the best kiss I’ve ever had, to this day.”

Harry was silent after that, before he asked his one final question. “Did it ever blow up in your face?”

She shook her head. “She was the best relationship I’ve ever had. We only stopped dating ‘cause I moved to London to do uni and she stayed in Ireland.”

Sophie finally opened her eyes to peek at Harry. He was facing away from her, looking at the pool, but specifically at one particular boy.

“You know,” She said quietly, just for Harry to hear, “He’s been asking me the same questions you have.” Harry jerked around, his eyes widening in shock. “Just go for it, Harry. Pull him aside and tell him you’d very much like to kiss him.”

Slowly, a hope bloomed in Harry’s eyes. And then he grinned like an idiot.

 

*

 

The first time he told her, it was blunt and casual.

“So, I think I’m in love with Harry.”

Sophie dropped the slice of pizza she was holding and stared at Niall. “Seriously?”

He nodded, grabbing her pizza before she could stop him. “I was wondering if you could help him out?”

“Help Harry out with what?” she asked, still wrapping her head around this.

“Just be there for when he starts asking questions,” Niall said, before adding, “And I know he wants to ask those questions already.”

Sophie grinned at him. “So should I come hang out backstage at your show tomorrow night? Maybe try to get him to talk to me?”

Niall grinned back at her. “And I’ll start a FIFA tournament so that no one interrupts you guys.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she replied, grabbing another piece of pizza.

After a few minutes of comfortable silence, Sophie poked him and said “falling in love with your best friend is always a good idea.”

 

*

 

The first time she saw them it was surprising and way too adorable.

Harry had pulled Niall aside immediately after their last show in Australia. They talked quietly in the corner, both with grins so wide that their faces had to have hurt. Niall blushed and looked down at his feet before Harry grabbed Niall’s hand and pulled him down the hallway. They were almost out of sight when they stopped and turned to face each other, leaning in to finally get their first kiss.

“About time, yeah?” Sophie heard a voice behind me. Turning, she saw Liam grinning at the pair just as wide as she was.

Sophie just nodded in agreement, turning back to smile at her two best friends again.

And both of them were smiling back.

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you think, please! I'm on tumblr too, come say hi [here](http://emhawkily.tumblr.com)!


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